While in Seattle for a Transit Conference I took a break to go roller blading around the lovely Green Lake which sits in the middle of some great little  neighbourhoods. Sitting on the front seat of my car with the door open I was putting on my blades when I saw a charming little girl, about seven years old, walk by me carefully carrying a small cardboard boxtop full of colourful flower blossoms.  

During my 21 years in the operator’s seat I was assaulted three times, once by another driver. I clearly understand and sympathize with how confronting and fearful it can be. Nonetheless, I disagree with the knee jerk solutions offered by transit authorities. Additional security cameras only give evidence after the fact and do not protect the driver in the moment of assault. The implementation of plexiglass shields on buses is akin to walling up your children so they won’t get hurt. Both of these “solutions” fly in the face of the multi-faceted services drivers provide.

Each driver comes into contact with 150,000 people a year. It is a unique opportunity to make a difference in the world.

If you’ve ever ridden public transit, you know that when people clamber aboard a bus they seem turned off, as if the time spent travelling is a kind of numbed out limbo realm that doesn’t really count as part of their real life.

In addition to the impassive faces, the atmosphere in the bus is permeated with a dismal, unhappy energy as if it were full of people heading for a day of hard labour at the salt mines rather than what I believe is the truth: that they are participants in the miracle of another precious day in their lives.

My mission is simple: I know that as a bus driver-or in fact anyone who works in the public-is in a position to make a positive difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. How I endeavoured to bring real fun and joy into people’s daily commute and, by extension, into their lives is what my book Bus Tales: How to Change the World is all about.